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Vulnerability to Sexual Victimization in Female and Male College Students in Brazil: Cross-Sectional and Prospective Evidence

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Abstract

Using both cross-sectional and prospective analyses, this study examined vulnerability factors for sexual victimization in 541 female and male Brazilian college students, of whom a subgroup of 250 took part in two measurements 6 months apart. Risk factors for sexual victimization (alcohol consumption, casual sex, and ambiguous communication) in participants’ cognitive scripts for consensual sex were linked to sexual victimization via their translation into risky sexual behavior. Pornography use was indirectly linked to sexual victimization through its influence on risky sexual scripts and sexual behavior. Child sexual abuse predicted sexual victimization in the cross-sectional analysis, and victimization since age 14 predicted revictimization in the six months covered by the prospective period. Few gender differences were found. This study is the first prospective investigation of vulnerability factors for sexual victimization in Brazil, and similarities to evidence from North America are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The final Brazilian Portuguese version of the SES is available from the corresponding author upon request.

  2. Twenty participants indicated that they had their first sexual intercourse under the age of 14 (the legal limit for child sexual abuse in Brazil), yet only one of them answered “yes” to the child sex abuse item about completed penetration. To avoid a potential confound between the measures of risky sexual behavior and child sex abuse, age at first intercourse was coded as missing for these participants.

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Acknowledgments

The first author is grateful to the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation for the scholarship that facilitated the completion of this study. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of Marina Rezende Bazon. They thank Gracielle Farah, Lia Freitas, Matthias Kiepsch, Myrelle Mirasyedi, Henning Suhr, and Jonathan Tudge for their support in creating the Portuguese measures and Rachel Marinho and Juliana Martins for their help in the data collection phase

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  1. Lylla Cysne Frota D’Abreu

    Present address: Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476, Potsdam, Germany

    Lylla Cysne Frota D’Abreu & Barbara Krahé

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Correspondence to Barbara Krahé.

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D’Abreu, L.C.F., Krahé, B. Vulnerability to Sexual Victimization in Female and Male College Students in Brazil: Cross-Sectional and Prospective Evidence. Arch Sex Behav 45, 1101–1115 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0451-7

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